Capitalist Bootlicker thread

im so grateful my boss gives me my paycheck, the corporate power structure says he gets to determine whether i get food to live or whether i die on the street, and it makes me happy for the opportunity to do what he tells me to do in return for the money i need to live.  he helps me help the people above him take advantage of market opportunities for growth and profit, and he says if im lucky some day in the far future i might start getting a share of the profits.  he says it every year that next year the pay will be more, but next year never comes.  i know the company cares about me though because why else would they give me this amazing opportunity to help them grow their market share? what i love most is how they have a kitchen where they charge massive prices for basic food items, it just shows how hard they're trying to make profits to give back to us, the workers.  the annoying thing though is that it's served on plates rather than polished black leather.  i'd love to lick the boots clean after i finish my lunch, feeling safe in the knowledge that all of the work i do is not only helping provide shareholder value, but helping the world become more and more centralized and environmentally destroyed, as well as increasing the power of the military of the country i work in.  it's just so great being a capitalist bootlicker, anyone else agree

^ Trickle Up Economics® innit

I agree

Capitalism is so BDSM

Broad claim: The alternative to work is insanity.

Watchu mean

I’d say it’s odds on that in 10 years time zeff becomes a more strident supporter of free market capitalism than even caze. 

  On 9/12/2020 at 3:21 PM, chenGOD said:

I’d say it’s odds on that in 10 years time zeff becomes a more strident supporter of free market capitalism than even caze. 

who knows what capitalism will look like in 10 years. 

  On 9/12/2020 at 10:12 PM, ignatius said:

who knows what capitalism will look like in 10 years. 

I’m thinking grey goo.

  On 9/12/2020 at 7:14 AM, Candiru said:

Last I saw it was college kids with some crusty punk types. It’s got big rats, who are currently gentrifying everything. 

Sounds like nothing changed. The area around Packard's Corner had some charm to it amongst the dinge.

  On 9/12/2020 at 3:21 PM, chenGOD said:

I’d say it’s odds on that in 10 years time zeff becomes a more strident supporter of free market capitalism than even caze. 

Surprised you havent used that pic as your avatar, zeff. That finger wagging def suits your style, methinks. Little smirk accompanying adds bonus precision points.

  On 9/12/2020 at 10:12 PM, ignatius said:

who knows what capitalism will look like in 10 years. 

In 10 years? I don't think capitalism will be radically different. Will unfettered capitalism be the dominant economic model in the US? Well not if you guys keep voting in consistently more progressive candidates - especially in local elections, where states and municipalities have a huge say in what sort of businesses they want to attract. Will socialism be the dominant economic model in the US? Probably not, but hopefully you'll at least have a good path established for universal healthcare, and some improvements to the safety nets.

  On 9/13/2020 at 6:14 AM, chenGOD said:

In 10 years? I don't think capitalism will be radically different. Will unfettered capitalism be the dominant economic model in the US? Well not if you guys keep voting in consistently more progressive candidates - especially in local elections, where states and municipalities have a huge say in what sort of businesses they want to attract. Will socialism be the dominant economic model in the US? Probably not, but hopefully you'll at least have a good path established for universal healthcare, and some improvements to the safety nets.

i was being a little flip since things are shit in america. hard to imagine the pendulum swinging back to regulation and oversight of banking and financial industries.. as well as any hope for organized labor rebounding. in 10 years it could be even more brutal and w/o even a fledgling amount of oversight. 

If your government doesn't do what its supposed to do, don't blame capitalism. Blame your government. 

If the us government/democracy (federal/state/local) maintains it current level of corruption, nothing will change. As far as I'm concerned, relatively speaking the "capitalism monster" is a red herring. There's an underlying corruption present which keeps the democracy from functioning properly. You/we can talk endlessly about financial institutions and what not, but if you address those, you don't necessarily solve this disfunctioning aspect of government. And without a functioning democracy, what the hell are you going to achieve?

Put differently, without a properly functioning democracy, things turn corrupt. You can blame "capitalism", but that won't fix your democracy. You need to fix your democracy in order to be able to tame this capitalism monster. Which isn't really a monster, btw. But with the amount of people being triggered by the term capitalism, I'm not going to bother having that discussion, tbh. 

  On 9/13/2020 at 7:06 AM, goDel said:

If your government doesn't do what its supposed to do, don't blame capitalism. Blame your government. 

If the us government/democracy (federal/state/local) maintains it current level of corruption, nothing will change. As far as I'm concerned, relatively speaking the "capitalism monster" is a red herring. There's an underlying corruption present which keeps the democracy from functioning properly. You/we can talk endlessly about financial institutions and what not, but if you address those, you don't necessarily solve this disfunctioning aspect of government. And without a functioning democracy, what the hell are you going to achieve?

Put differently, without a properly functioning democracy, things turn corrupt. You can blame "capitalism", but that won't fix your democracy. You need to fix your democracy in order to be able to tame this capitalism monster. Which isn't really a monster, btw. But with the amount of people being triggered by the term capitalism, I'm not going to bother having that discussion, tbh. 

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it can be fixed maybe. we'll see. but it's one of those things like voting rights that requires constant vigilance because it's always going to be under attack. the fraud is out in the open here. and yeah.. i blame the government.. or individuals throughout history who were dominoes falling one by one...  politics is addicted to the money. some people can do the right thing but overall it's pretty broken. 

i guess someone will have to figure out if the USA was ever a "properly functioning democracy" or has it always been sucking the corporate tit at the expense of the people? it's probably an argument that can be made simply looking at USA foreign power since the industrial revolution. 

american society is pretty weird and i think a lot of the population is disconnected from the central ideas of what a country should be. there's a lack of collectivism outside of regional, local etc places. so, a lack of belief in a central truth or group of actual facts.. these days anyway. 

  On 9/13/2020 at 6:14 AM, chenGOD said:

In 10 years? I don't think capitalism will be radically different. Will unfettered capitalism be the dominant economic model in the US? Well not if you guys keep voting in consistently more progressive candidates - especially in local elections, where states and municipalities have a huge say in what sort of businesses they want to attract. Will socialism be the dominant economic model in the US? Probably not, but hopefully you'll at least have a good path established for universal healthcare, and some improvements to the safety nets.

hahahahahaha what theres nothing resembling progressiveness or universal healthcare being laid down remotely

as for the topic of this thread... these would be nice.. 

https://en-de.neumann.com/kh-310-a

  On 9/13/2020 at 7:06 AM, goDel said:

If your government doesn't do what its supposed to do, don't blame capitalism. Blame your government. 

If the us government/democracy (federal/state/local) maintains it current level of corruption, nothing will change. As far as I'm concerned, relatively speaking the "capitalism monster" is a red herring. There's an underlying corruption present which keeps the democracy from functioning properly. You/we can talk endlessly about financial institutions and what not, but if you address those, you don't necessarily solve this disfunctioning aspect of government. And without a functioning democracy, what the hell are you going to achieve?

Put differently, without a properly functioning democracy, things turn corrupt. You can blame "capitalism", but that won't fix your democracy. You need to fix your democracy in order to be able to tame this capitalism monster. Which isn't really a monster, btw. But with the amount of people being triggered by the term capitalism, I'm not going to bother having that discussion, tbh. 

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this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what capitalism is and how deeply interconnected it is to both the organization power structure of the state, and the operation of its logistical requirements.  you cannot blame the state for failing to keep capitalism in check because capital is the dominant power alien to the population itself and even alien to individual capitalists.  both the capitalists and the state are subordinate to it.  it has a mind of its own which exists through the transmission of information through markets and whose environment is the legal structure of the society it lives in with regards to private property rights, which is makes its own habitat as it desires

capitalism and democracy are fundamentally incompatible because capitalism and wage labor is dictatorial and undemocratic.  how can a democracy keep a dictatorship in check - a dictatorship which controls the means of production and thus the material conditions of the populace?

  On 9/13/2020 at 7:37 AM, ignatius said:

 

it can be fixed maybe. we'll see. but it's one of those things like voting rights that requires constant vigilance because it's always going to be under attack. the fraud is out in the open here. and yeah.. i blame the government.. or individuals throughout history who were dominoes falling one by one...  politics is addicted to the money. some people can do the right thing but overall it's pretty broken. 

i guess someone will have to figure out if the USA was ever a "properly functioning democracy" or has it always been sucking the corporate tit at the expense of the people? it's probably an argument that can be made simply looking at USA foreign power since the industrial revolution. 

american society is pretty weird and i think a lot of the population is disconnected from the central ideas of what a country should be. there's a lack of collectivism outside of regional, local etc places. so, a lack of belief in a central truth or group of actual facts.. these days anyway. 

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it has never been a democracy, from the beginning it was a kleptocracy just look at slavery.  its more in the open now.  its a capitalist empire wrapped in nice fashion accessories like a constitution and monuments like Washington DC

  On 9/13/2020 at 7:50 AM, cyanobacteria said:

how can a democracy keep a dictatorship in check - a dictatorship which controls the means of production and thus the material conditions of the populace?

f priorities. real 1's, not $. $ is an abstraction, & abstractions r dangerous - particularly in their distracting from lived humanity.

ethics, & improved consciousness, higher learning, free heath care & education, what was once called "common sense" might help keep capitalism in check. increased regulation, democratic oversight, & punishment of the inbred corruption - the bs & fake shit. esp. w/r/t property, banking, big data & big tech, the media, & military spending.

given the situation rn, this may not be possible. the dictatorship might have 2b overthrown, any witch way.

the capitalism as we know it now is corrupt af; so unregulated & undemocratic, & so possibly beyond redemption even - given that most, if not all of, our basic life freedoms are in such thrall to its broken system. a system cheered on by McSlaves, but run by a handful of greedy power trippers steering their off-radar mega-yachts unchecked into icebergs @ everyone elses' expense - the planet & her citizens, her creatures incl.

evil is knowing better, & doing worse.

democracy v2 pls

  On 9/13/2020 at 7:37 AM, ignatius said:

american society is pretty weird and i think a lot of the population is disconnected from the central ideas of what a country should be. there's a lack of collectivism outside of regional, local etc places. so, a lack of belief in a central truth or group of actual facts.. these days anyway. 

 

 

To me, the only way to make sense of it, is there's quite a number of people who put a lot of value in personal responsibility. Which in itself isn't bad, or anything. It's just something I notice in discussions between conservatives and liberals that keeps coming back without explicitly being talked about. At least, that's what it looks like to me. All this talk about personal freedom and keeping the government out of your back yard, can be seen as talk about personal responsibility. Which, to me, seems like a more useful way to frame the political discussions. As both sides of the isle might be better in finding common ground by framing problems and solutions in terms of personal responsibility. But only in a normal non-corrupt government. In the current situation, it doesn't matter how you frame it. People don't want to solve issues, it seems.

  On 9/13/2020 at 7:50 AM, cyanobacteria said:

you cannot blame the state for failing to keep capitalism in check because capital is the dominant power alien to the population itself and even alien to individual capitalists.

There are a number of countries where capitalism with regulation works pretty well. The American experience is not universal.

As well, even in recent history, America was on a path to better regulation of wall street and the banking industry after the stupidity of repealing Glass-Steagall. Dodd-Frank was a decent starting point. Strengthening the Volcker rule would have provided more protection to clients. Unfortunately, the US decided to elect a showman-fraudster as president, and the resulting roll back of even those small steps is threatening the economic stability of the US.

But keep telling yourself that electing democrats wouldn't have had a progressive and beneficial effect and things would have been exactly the same as they are now. Keep telling yourself that voting in local elections doesn't help (like electing David Soares as the DA in Albany didn't help people of colour and poor people there) and doesn't change anything.

How many times does it need to be said - change happens slowly, with sustained effort. The US needs a starting point, voting in Biden-Harris and then taking both Congress and Senate in 2022 are good starting points. Voting for more progressive candidates in local elections (where third-party write-ins are actually possible) are starting points. You want Scandinavian style healthcare (fuck even Canadian style healthcare) and social policies? Work for them - the system does actually work, but it takes effort.

  On 9/13/2020 at 12:53 AM, Braintree said:

Sounds like nothing changed. The area around Packard's Corner had some charm to it amongst the dinge.

Yeah I actually sort of liked going to the area near Brighton Music Hall (formerly Harper’s Ferry I think) and Deep Ellum is a nice bar. 

  On 9/13/2020 at 6:12 PM, chenGOD said:

There are a number of countries where capitalism with regulation works pretty well. The American experience is not universal.

As well, even in recent history, America was on a path to better regulation of wall street and the banking industry after the stupidity of repealing Glass-Steagall. Dodd-Frank was a decent starting point. Strengthening the Volcker rule would have provided more protection to clients. Unfortunately, the US decided to elect a showman-fraudster as president, and the resulting roll back of even those small steps is threatening the economic stability of the US.

But keep telling yourself that electing democrats wouldn't have had a progressive and beneficial effect and things would have been exactly the same as they are now. Keep telling yourself that voting in local elections doesn't help (like electing David Soares as the DA in Albany didn't help people of colour and poor people there) and doesn't change anything.

How many times does it need to be said - change happens slowly, with sustained effort. The US needs a starting point, voting in Biden-Harris and then taking both Congress and Senate in 2022 are good starting points. Voting for more progressive candidates in local elections (where third-party write-ins are actually possible) are starting points. You want Scandinavian style healthcare (fuck even Canadian style healthcare) and social policies? Work for them - the system does actually work, but it takes effort.

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its not about working for them its not about voting.  who are you talking to exactly when you say "work for them", me?  because if so you know very well no amount of work i do will ever bring it.  the american public as a whole? because you know very well we DO collectively want it when polled on it in a way that's apolitical. and yet it's not here.  i wonder why.  it's because the entire democracy is broken, on purpose